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Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) joined Hannity to discuss the latest on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the history of authoritarianism, and President Biden’s weak domestic energy policy. See below for highlights and watch the full interview here.
On the latest developments out of Ukraine:
“The Russians are bringing to bear about 60, 65 percent of their entire conventional forces … inside the country of Ukraine after 20 years of massive increases in defense spending.
“I think you’re seeing a couple things. Bad planning, no doubt about it. I think you’re also seeing that some of the Russian equipment isn’t as good as advertised. The last thing you’re seeing, and probably the most important, is that will to fight. And that’s not something that’s easily measured.
“I don’t think Putin or the Russian military thought that Ukrainians would fight the way they have right now, and they are playing defense. They are in a defensive position, which has allowed them, for example, for weeks to build up defenses around Kyiv.
“I don’t think the Russians are going to go in and take any of these cities. They may be able to level them … but take them — that’s going to be a tough task, especially Kyiv.”
On the rise of authoritarianism around the globe:
“If you look at the history of mankind, about 5,500 years of written history, it’s largely been the story of authoritarianism. What we have here in America… it’s very rare and unique. Almost all of human history has been about authoritarianism. History didn’t end at the fall of the Soviet Union.
“Now you have authoritarians in charge in some pretty powerful countries like Russia [and] like China. And then they have nuclear weapons in places like North Korea, and they’re trying to get them in Iran.
“What you’re seeing here is a number of countries testing America, testing freedom. They view this as their opportunity right now to expand for a lot of different reasons. They see weakness in the White House, they see distractions and complacency in the West….
“Do I believe the American people are prepared to do what it takes to defend Taiwan? Absolutely. But just know we are not going to have the same options to sanction China that we’ve had to sanction Russia, which reminds us why we need to begin to protect our own economy. One thing is to get cut off from the Russian economy, but right now we depend way too much on China for the things we buy. We have to stop that.”
On the Biden Administration’s opposition to American energy production:
“These guys have an agenda that becomes an object of religious worship. ‘We have to sign a deal with Iran!’ They are so obsessed with it. ‘No matter what else is happening in the world, we have to get that Iran deal done. Doesn’t matter how many people they kill, how many attacks they carry out, we got to do that.’ The same with the Green New Deal and so forth.
“They are so obsessed with it … as if somehow a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia were cleaner than a barrel of oil from the United States. ‘No matter who we have to buy from, let’s buy it from them, let’s beg them for it, but let’s not produce it in America, so that we can say at least it isn’t our oil that’s destroying the environment.’ It’s just lunacy. It’s nonsense, it’s left us vulnerable. The American people see what common sense decisions are, but these guys can’t make that decision because they’ve got radicals in charge of the Democratic Party.”
On the problem with establishing a no-fly zone over Ukraine:
“A no-fly zone is not what people think it is. It would require going to war with Russia. We would have to go after all of their anti-aircraft surface-to-air missiles. Not just in Ukraine. We’d have to go after them in Russia, we’d have to go after them in Belarus. You have to be willing to shoot down any airplanes that fly over the air in Ukraine.
“I don’t think a lot of people fully understand, no-fly zones are not some FAA rule that’s out there. They have to be enforced, you have to be willing to go out and shoot people down. And in the case of Russia, you’re going to have to knock out their surface-to-air missiles. This is not Syria, this is not Iraq. These guys have real surface-to-air missiles.
“Before we go to World War III — which is what that would be — we have to be prepared to understand clearly what we are talking about doing here.”